Graphics and Human Computer Interfaces Commons^™

Principles Of Anti-Discriminatory Design, D. E. Wittkower

Philosophy Faculty Publications

Technical design can produce exclusionary and even discriminatory effects for users. A lack of discriminatory intent is insufficient to avoid discriminatory design, since implicit assumptions about users rarely include all relevant user demographics, and in some cases, designing for all relevant users is actually impossible. To minimize discriminatory effects of technical design, an actively anti-discriminatory design perspective must be adopted. This article provides examples of discriminatory user exclusion, then defining exclusionary design in terms of disaffordances and dysaffordances. Once these definitions are in place, principles of anti-discriminatory design are advanced, drawing upon a method of phenomenological variation employed in the …